


Pompeii

by Norickayer



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien is a nonbinary trans women in this, Canon Character of Color, Cat Noire has a mystery to solve and who do they call? Alya, Gen, Identity Reveal, In Media Res, bc Adrien...is such a useless lesbian, gratuitous song-lyrics-as-titles, taken for granite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Norickayer/pseuds/Norickayer
Summary: Cat Noire took a deep breath. Their shoulders were tense, and their golden hair seemed messier than usual. While experience had proven that Cat Noire was undoubtedly human, they were puffed up like a nervous cat. In another life, Alya might find this funny. If Ladybug wasn’t MIA, if Hawkmoth hadn’t inundated the city with akuma in her absence, if the Miraculous Cure still guaranteed their safety, Alya would be laughing.Instead, Cat Noire’s nervousness just made Alya all the more concerned.“Alya,” Cat announced, “I need you to help me find out Ladybug’s identity.”





	1. Walls tumbling down

**Author's Note:**

> Cat Noire is fem!Chat Noir. Same character, different pronouns. In this universe, Cat Noire has recently come out as tranfeminine, more specifically as a nonbinary trans woman. They use gender neutral pronouns ("they" in English, "iel" in French) but feminine descriptors. If you're confused and have questions about this concept, real life nonbinary trans woman Riley J. Dennis explains in this article: [click here](https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/01/man-or-woman-and-still-non-binary/) (The link contains both a video and a transcript)
> 
> Because Adrienne is a useless lesbian.
> 
> The first version of this story used "Chat Noire", which is incorrect in French (Chat=masculine, Noire=feminine). I considered using Chatte Noire, but because I'm using the English translation of other names I gave in and used the English "Cat" instead of the French "Chatte", which can also be a euphemism for genitalia.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug is MIA. To find her, Cat Noire goes to the person who has gotten the closest to discovering their identities: Alya.

Cat Noire took a deep breath. Their shoulders were tense, and their golden hair seemed messier than usual. While experience had proven that Cat Noire was undoubtedly human, they were puffed up like a nervous cat. In another life, Alya might find this funny. If Ladybug wasn’t MIA, if Hawkmoth hadn’t inundated the city with akuma in her absence, if the Miraculous Cure still guaranteed their safety, Alya would be laughing.

Instead, Cat Noire’s nervousness just made Alya all the more concerned.

“Alya,” Cat announced, “I need you to help me find out Ladybug’s identity.”

Alya’s lips thinned into a grim line. “So you don’t know where she is either? If I had any idea I’d tell you.”

Cat Noire shook their head. “It’s pretty obvious that she was one of The MonstArtist’s statues, but she froze hundreds of civilians before I stopped her.”

Paris gained hundreds of statues that day, residents frozen in the motions of everyday life. The Monstartist had been a quiet akuma, one that hadn’t gained attention until it was too late. By now they had all been removed from the streets. Some families had identified and claimed their relatives, hiding them away in homes for safekeeping. Dozens of others had been relocated to a public garden. Tourists might mistake them for art, but Cat Noire considered it a graveyard.

No Parisian would be able to look at sculptures the same way again.

Alya bit her lip. “Does it really matter who she is? At this point, a Ladybug statue isn’t going to help us much. Is it?” She wanted to be hopeful. She wanted Cat to have a solution, to bring back the world that contained a Miraculous Cure. But as a journalist, she remained skeptical.

“There might be a way to revive her.”

There it was. Her spark of hope. “What? This is huge! You can cure the statues?” Alya couldn’t believe her luck. She began spinning headlines in her head, planning camera angles for when she filmed the revival of the statue garden.

“No, but if she was wearing her Miraculous when she was frozen, there might be a way to revive Ladybug. Just Ladybug.” Cat’s voice remained steady, but the cat ears on their head told a different story: they pivoted back and down, like a cat facing down a larger animal.

The spark threatened to fizzle out, but Alya remained firm. “Okay. So we find Ladybug. You revive her, and she-?” Alya paused, letting Cat Noire fill in the rest. She wasn’t ready to voice her high hopes again, in case they were dashed.

“And Ladybug uses Miraculous Cure,” Cat finished for her. “I hope.”

“Right,” Alya agreed. “Let’s get started.”

* * * * * * *

Alya made a promise not to dig into Ladybug’s secret identity. She took down the “rumors and theories” forum on her blog, and all of her own previous posts on the subject. She stopped asking leading questions in interviews. She stopped trying to follow the heroes after battle.

She took every scrap of information, every theory and hint she had ever devised, and put them on a flash drive. It was in search of that flash drive that she was now scouring her bedroom.

“Where was it?” Alya demanded. “I put it right here!” The flash drive was supposed to be labeled “Chem Project” and stashed in her desk drawer with forgotten erasers and depleted sharpies. Instead it, like Ladybug herself, was missing.

“Billie!” she screamed, “Get your butt in here!”

The sound of faint grumbling was easy to miss, but the stomping down the hall, and the slam of her door being opened was not.

An eleven year old stood in the doorway, arms crossed in defense.

“What?” Alya’s younger brother demanded.

“Did you take my flash drive?” she asked without preamble.

Billie frowned and shifted uneasily. “No,” he lied.

“You’re lying.”

“It’s not a big deal,” he grumbled, “I just needed it to borrow music from a kid at school. You weren’t using it.”

Alya held out her hand. “Gimmie.”

Billie sighed loudly. “Fine.”

He stomped away, only to return with the red flashdrive, the label “Chem Project” was intact, but peeling off. Alya frowned at this. Billie stuck out his tongue.

“Thanks!” she called at her brother’s retreating back.

There was little space left, but it looked like Billie hadn’t needed to delete any files to fit all of his music onto the 20gb drive. It also didn’t look like he had opened any of it. The word documents were password protected and labeled things like “Mitochondria 2-10-17”, “Nobel Gases 15-11-17”, in an extra effort to keep nosy siblings and akumas away from the real info.

Under the subterfuge and passwords were high-res photos of Ladybug, a blurry screencap of a textbook, a list of schools in Paris, and several text documents detailing dozens of theories.

Nothing conclusive, of course.

It would take a lot of leg work and some questionable legality, but if Alya could get her hands on a list of MonstArtist’s victims, it might be enough to uncover Ladybug's identity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alya's non-canon brother is named after Billie Tipton, an American Jazz musician who was a trans man. Since "Billie" would be an unusual name for a French preteen, I am heavily implying that Alya's brother is trans. Now I'm outright stating it. 
> 
> I will be writing more things in this universe, but it might not be a direct sequel to this chapter.


	2. Journalistic Ethics/ choking on words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actually assembling a list of the akuma's victims was easier said than done.

Actually assembling a list of MonstArtist’s victims was easier said than done. Alya’s first step was to scour the web for news articles for the names of victims. Very few victims were identified by name, due to privacy concerns. Those who were identified were accompanied by a quote from a relative or spouse who escaped the akuma’s rampage. The list was short, under a dozen names. Even fewer were school-aged. Still, Alya dutifully checked the four minors against the list of schools who used Alya’s History textbook, which Ladybug was seen carrying several months prior.

So far, nothing checked out. Was she checking out the right hunch? Was the textbook a red herring? Should she be searching via appearance instead, looking for a young woman with short dark hair and blue eyes?

Alya shook her head. No, Cat Noire’s eyes proved that whatever magic gave them powers could change their appearance as well, unless one really thought there was a teenager with green cat eyes running around Paris in a tee-shirt.

She’d gone down this road before. Alya sighed and turned off the computer. It was time for some legwork.

Step 2: getting copies of yearbooks for the three schools in Paris who assigned the textbook Histoire to their students.

Finding a copy of the yearbook for her own school was easy. As a student, Alya had access to the library during school hours. It was simple to check out a copy of their 10th grade yearbook.

The other two schools were more of a challenge. Her first thought was to put a call out on the Ladyblog, but of course that would attract too much attention. The point was to keep the search quiet, not announce it to all of France.

After a bit of thought, she started closer. The Ladyblog might be too public, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have help.

Alya slipped her phone out of her pocket.

* * * * * * *

Alya: Do you know anyone who attends Collège Lycée Charlemagne or Collège Privé Charles Péguy?

Rose: no

Rose: but my aunt works at lycée henri iv.

* * * * * * *

Alya: Do you know anyone who attends Collège Lycée Charlemagne or Collège Privé Charles Péguy?

Mylene: i dont think so

Mylene: y?

* * * * * * *

Alya: Do you know anyone who attends Collège Lycée Charlemagne or Collège Privé Charles Péguy?

Alix: my cousin goes to Charlemagne

Alix: how did u know?

Bingo.

* * * * * * *

Alya met Alix’s cousin in front of the collège and received the book with a smile.

“I know you’re Alix’s friend, but make sure you don’t lose this, okay?” he asked with a nervous edge to his voice. “I checked it out from the library, so if it disappears, it’s on my head.”

Alya hefted the book under her arm and leaned the spine on her hip. She saluted. “I’ll make sure you get it back.”

“What do you need our yearbook for, anyway?” he asked.

Alya shrugged, deliberately casual. “Research.”

“Kind of a weird time for it. Are you helping design your school’s yearbook or something?”

“Or something,” she agreed.

* * * * * * *

The third school remained a problem. No one within two degrees of separation from Alya was a current student, so she was back to square 1.

She was proud of her body of work. She might make bad judgement calls now and again, but she had her journalistic ethics, and she generally kept her activities within the legal limits and her blog in good public standing.

If this was a Ladyblog exclusive, she wouldn’t consider breaking into a school and impersonating a student. If she was caught, it would reflect badly on all of her work up to this point.

But to potentially save Ladybug, and all of Paris? No question.

* * * * * * *

There were people missing in her class. There were kids missing in every class. Some were victims of MonstArtist, or the akumas that followed; Alya counted them off in her head: Max, Sabrina, Kim, Marinette. Others were pulled from class by their families. Some of these students, like Adrien, stayed at home studying, keeping up with school work but kept safe, away from public places so beloved by akumas. Others, like Nathaniel, had left the city entirely. Last Alya heard, he was safety absconded to the home of an aunt in western France.

Mayor Bourgeois tried to control the narrative, but citizens were in turmoil. The vacationers stayed away from Paris, and thrill-seekers rolled in, GoPros strapped to helmets or rented scooters, hoping for a glimpse at Paris’ famous superheroes- or supervillains.

Some people stayed. Even during natural disasters, some people always stayed. There were the stubborn, who refused to evacuate for pride or honor or sheer bull-headedness. There were those in need, those who couldn’t afford to leave, or weren’t mobile enough, or who had nowhere else to go. And there were the brave, nurses and firemen and paramedics and regular citizens who remained behind help those who couldn’t leave.

Alya liked to think she was one of the brave.

That made it easier to sneak onto a strange campus after dark. Thinking of herself as a hero raised her confidence, and made that locked fence look like a momentary hurdle rather than the firm obstacle it was proving to be.

Cat Noire caught her trying to climb the fence.

“You know, I expect kids to try to break out of school, not- Alya?”

She froze, or attempted to. Her fingers lost their grip and she fell three feet onto the leaf-covered ground. Her pithy retort came out as a wordless groan.

“Hey, are you okay?” Blonde hair and black cat ears entered her field of vision, upside down.

“Fine.” She sat up and looked up at the metal fence surrounding the school. It looked perfectly scalable from the road, but in practice her shoes were just a little too slippery, her arms just a little too shaky.

“And you’re trying to break into a school you don’t attend because-?” Cat asked, allowing Alya time to fill in an answer.

“It’s stage 2 in my plan to narrow down Ladybug suspects.”

“You make it sound like she’s the criminal,” Cat Noire muttered.

Alya ignored them. “Can you help me get inside?”

Cat looked thoughtful. They weren’t looking at the fence, as Alya was, but at Alya herself.

Alya subconsciously leaned away from their scrutiny.

“...what?” she asked.

“You think this is a good idea?” Cat asked seriously.

Alya bit back her instinctual reply and actually gave it some thought. She sighed.

“No, but it’s the only idea I’ve got.”

Cat Noire grinned. Alya tried to remember if they had always had fangs. Had she ever been close enough to find out?

“Good enough for me!” They chirped. Firm arms wrapped around her waist, and before she knew it, Cat extended their staff and vaulted the pair over the fence and onto the grass of Collège Privé Charles Péguy.

Alya strangled a scream, instead making a strange gurgling sound in her throat. Cat laughed, and Alya couldn’t help but look for fangs again. There they were. Yup.

Were they still called canines on a cat? Alya made a mental note to look that up.

They dashed across the grass to the closest brick building, and crept along the wall until they found a door.

It was locked.

Cat eyed the door and its lock, trying to gauge if they could safely Cataclysm the lock without destroying the door. “Did you have a plan for getting in to the- AH!”

Alya punched the glass with all her might. It cracked in tandem with Cat’s scream. Alya shook her hand out, and unwrapped it from her jacket to check for damage.

“What the hell, no, no you’re not doing this. I’m the responsible superhero, I’ll get us in.” Cat babled with gradually increasing confidence.

“Cataclysm,” they whispered. Their hand began to ooze with dark energy. Instead of the lock, Cat Noire pressed their hand against the cracked window. The glass melted away into nothing, leaving an empty space more than big enough for two teenagers to crawl through.

“Ok, what are we looking for?” Cat asked.

“The Library,” Alya answered. “Come on, I’ll explain on the way.”

* * * * * * *

“You really could’ve the same information on Facebook,” Cat Noire pointed out. Their ears twitched at every small noise. Alya stuck out her tongue and pressed another page of the yearbook into the glass of the copier. There was a faint beeping noise from Cat Noire’s ring. Alya tried not to think of it as a portent of things to come.

“With privacy settings and some people staying off social media, it wouldn’t have given me a complete list,” Alya whispered.

“-and some people miss picture day!” Cat argued back. Their ears twitched as the copier loudly processed its job.

“-But their names are still in the yearbook, so at least I know who I’m missing.”

“..okay maybe you have thought this through,” Cat Noire admitted. “But I still can’t believe you were going to punch through glass.”

A week later, Alya would think back to this moment with pride. Now, she silently gathered up the photocopies.

“It’ll be worth it if it means that all of this is over.”

Cat nodded grimly.

 


	3. The Dust Settles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alya's search ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the anonymous commenter "Logic has arrived", for inspiring me to write 2,000 more words of this trans!Cat Noir fic.
> 
> Thank you for reminding me why I include trans characters in my writing: Self-indulgence and Spite.

Cat declined to join Alya at the statue garden the next day.

“I can’t risk it. In the dark, at the outskirts of Paris, I can run around as Cat Noire. But in broad daylight, at a public monument?” they shook their head, rustling their blonde hair like a tree in the wind. “Hawkmoth would notice. And he’d wonder what I was doing. We need to find Ladybug, but we can’t let Hawkmoth catch on. If he even knows we’re looking, he might find her first. If you find any matches to the yearbooks, I’ll check them after dark.”

“More breaking and entering?” Alya asked with a wry smile.

“What, you’re tired of playing  _ cat _ burglar with me already?” Cat winked.

“Ugh, get out of here!” she shooed the hero away with a laugh.

It was nice to see that Cat Noire could still pun. Maybe there was still some normalcy left in the world, and some hope that Paris could be saved.

Still, Alya was perturbed.

Sometimes she forgot Hawkmoth was a real person behind all of the suffering. It had been going on for so long that sometimes the akumas felt like a force of nature, a tide of bad luck that Ladybug and Cat Noire fought against without rest.

But he was an individual who planned every attack. One person who looked at the pain and anguish of the citizens of Paris and saw weapons to exploit. Cat Noire had to be more careful than she did. They had to worry not only about the police and the media’s reaction, but also the ever-present threat of Hawkmoth, and how his awareness of Cat’s actions could give him an advantage over the heroes.

Alya went alone. She shuffled the photocopies between her hands, flipping between pages to ensure she wasn’t missing a face. The wind threatened to steal the papers away, tugging at her hands. She tugged back, fighting against the spring chill.

She walked down the rows slowly, stopping at each statue. If the face was much too old or too young to be in 10 th grade, she moved on. If they seemed the right age, she checked their face against the yearbook pages.

It was slow going, but she thought she’d found five matches in the statue garden. It wasn’t a sure thing, and it wasn’t complete, but it was a start.

Five matches. Five statues. Five victims of MonstArtist who were incapacitated at the same time Ladybug disappeared, and who probably had a copy of the textbook that Ladybug was spotted holding. Five possible leads to Ladybug’s identity.

Five dead ends.

* * * * * * *

Cat Noire checked in with her that night, knocking at her window. She gave them the names, and expected that to be the end of it.

Abruptly, Cat grabbed her around the waist and used their extendable baton to propel them both toward the statue garden. At the school, Alya had stiffened and remained rigid until Cat put her down. This time, she tried to tuck her body against theirs and calm the hammering heart in her chest. She was somewhat unsuccessful. 

At the garden, Alya dutifully led the superhero to each suspect in turn, introducing the statues to Cat Noire by name and school. Cat leaned in to scrutinize their faces. Alya watched with bated breath. 

She wondered what they were looking for, if it was some magical moment. She wondered if Cat Noire could really recognize Ladybug out of her costume, considering that they didn’t know her identity to begin with.

(Alya allowed herself a moment to lament the demise of one of her favorite theories. ‘I can’t believe Cat Noire doesn’t know Ladybug’s secret identity,’ she thought, ‘I guess they really aren’t together.’)

“Not this one,” Cat said shortly. They stepped back and looked at Alya, gesturing for her to lead on.

‘How do you know?” she blurted out. Hair could be changed, eyes were clearly mutable by magic. Was Cat looking for the curve of her jaw, the width of her nose?

Cat blushed in embarrassment.

“This statue isn’t wearing earrings. Pl- I have evidence that Ladybug had her Miraculous on when she was frozen.”

* * * * * * *

The first four statues weren’t wearing earrings. The fifth was, but Cat Noire confirmed that the hoops winding through her cartilage didn’t match the shape or size of Ladybug’s Miraculous, so the last suspect was cleared as well.

“We’re back to square one,” Alya lamented, collapsing onto a stone bench at the entrance to the garden.

“No we’re not,” Cat Noire announced. “We just crossed several hundred people off the suspect list!”

“Yeah, and we’re back to having no idea who- wait. You’re right. We know Ladybug goes to one of these schools-“

“-probably-“ Cat Noire interrupted.

“-and that she got frozen by MonstArtist. We also know she’s not here in the garden. Her statue must’ve been removed by her family,” Alya concluded. “So we  _ have _ narrowed it down.”

“But how do we identify a statue that’s hidden?”

Alya thought this over.

“We find…who  _ isn’t _ here.”

“What.” Their question was flat, but the cat ears on their head perked upright with curiosity.

“Absentee records. We have a list, now, of students who are in the statue garden. So now we subtract those from the students who were absent the day after the attack, and we’ll have a new list of possible Ladybugs!”

Cat Noire nodded along. 

“We just have to get access to the class roll…” Possibilities flitted through her mind. Alya wished she could remember that first day more clearly. No matter. She could make a list of who was absent in her class yesterday, and cross off the students who had evacuated. But that was only one class out of several at Collège Françoise Dupont, and that didn’t even cover the other two schools.

“Hey, what school do you go to?” she asked Cat Noire.

They jumped. Their shoulders rose toward their (human) ears, tense. “Alya, I definitely can’t tell you that!”

Alya huffed. “Cat, I’m not trying to find out who you are, I’m trying to see if you can help!”

Cat remained tense. “Well I don’t go to Collège Lycée Charlemagne or Collège Privé Charles Péguy, so it doesn’t matter!”

Alya noticed they didn’t deny going to Collège Françoise Dupont. And sure, maybe it was because Alya went there and she clearly didn’t need another insider at her own school. But Alya filed that away in her mind, just in case.

* * * * * * *

Alya checked out her own class first. After that she planned to use Cat Noire as a distraction (knowing or unknowing) to break into Principal Damocles’ office for the rest of the attendance records. She would worry about the other schools after she checked all of the victims from Collège Françoise Dupont.

Alya was getting desperate. A few hours after her meeting with Cat, an akuma attacked. He wasn’t as bad as MonstArtist had been, bit he did create a small army of minions before Cat Noire defeated him. Those minions included friends, neighbors, and Alya’s mother. 

They had not been released when Cat defeated the akuma. They would not be free until Alya found Ladybug.

Alya should have returned to her methodical search. She should have checked one of the other schools first, leaving her own, the easiest target, for last.

But she didn’t. Partially it was desperation. But also, a hunch. Collège Françoise Dupont had the highest concentration of akuma victims in the city. Hawkmoth tended to strike in the center of Paris. The tourist areas, some said. A common theory was that he was trying for largest collateral damage, and the highest visibility. Alya wondered whether the school was targeted because it happened to be near this area, or vice versa.

In her class, there were several unconfirmed victims of MonstArtist: Sabrina, Max, Kim, and Marinette. Sabrina’s name was already crossed off. Her statue had been present in the garden, and Cat Noire had already checked her.

Plus, Alya’s mind whispered, Sabrina had been akumatized in the past. Alya had seen Ladybug with Sabrina.

The truth was close. Out of a sense of superstition or hesitance, Alya avoided considering the full implications of her clues just yet. She spread them out in her mind:

Collège Françoise Dupont

The 10 th grade History textbook

Absence from school since last Tuesday

Someone who had not yet been akumatized.

Although they were first and second on her list, Alya skipped over Max and Kim for now. Instead, she grabbed her bag and her phone, and headed to the Dupain-Cheng bakery.

Alya was surprised to find it open, given the late hour and the general state of the city. Most businesses in the area were closed, their owners either evacuated or battening down the hatches in case of attack.

The bell chimed as she pulled open the door, as if it was a normal day. As if there were customers waiting, and Alya was arriving to hang out with Marinette.

“Coming!” the voice of Marinette’s mother called from the back.

Alya ran her fingers down the shoulder strap of her bag. Marinette’s mother had never been anything but kind to her. She didn’t deserve to be lied to, but Alya also couldn’t tell her the entire truth behind her visit.

“Alya?” Sabine Cheng greeted her. She was carrying a rag, which she was using to wipe flour off of her hands.

“Hey Mme. Cheng. I- uh, I’m surprised to see you’re open.”

Marinette’s mother laughed. “Well, you know Tom. If he couldn’t bake, he’d be a mess. I only hope we can sell some of this before it all goes stale!”

Alya tried to laugh. It didn’t fool anyone.

Sabine gave her a sad smile. “Are you here to see Marinette?”

Alya nodded.

As Sabine led her up the stairs toward Marinette’s room, Alya regained her voice and began to speak. Sabine deserved something, some justification for Alya selfishly exhuming her daughter’s memory.

“It was quiet at school without her,” Alya began. “It’s closed now, for a couple days, but when all this started we were still attending class. Marinette was one of the first to g-go,” she tripped over her words, but kept going, gaining speed. “She’s usually so positive, it was hard to feel normal without her there. I kept hoping she was just late to class, you know?”

Sabine nodded, “I know. You and Nino came here after school that day to check on her, remember?”

“Yeah. I was just hoping she was sick or something.”

“We all have to keep hoping,” Sabine confided, “That one day Ladybug will return and deliver Marinette back to us.”

“Definitely,” Alya agreed sadly, quietly.

Caught up in her own story, Alya’s eyes were already tearing up as she approached the cold, hard facade of her best friend. Like all of the victims, Marinette was frozen in a moment. Her body was twisted, her head turned as she noticed something behind her. Her legs were bent as she prepared to run. 

Alya spared a moment to be thankful Marinette hadn’t had time to take a step. With both feet on the ground, she had retained enough balance to stay upright, even while frozen. Alya wasn’t sure what could happen to the statues if they broke, and she hoped they never found out.

Marinette’s hands were close to her body, one holding tight to the strap of her purse. The other hand was resting on the latch of the small bag, thumb pressed to the metal. She must’ve been about to open it.

Alya was overwhelmed by emotion. She had seen dozens of frozen victims before this moment. Classmates, friends, and enemies had stood before her, rendered inert and still by the magic of Hawkmoth. Marinette was somehow different. Maybe it was the closeness of their friendship. Maybe it was the setting, seeing her here, in her home. Maybe it was Marinette herself. She was usually so animated, so alive. She wore her emotions on her face and felt so deeply, it was hard not to feel with her.

Pushing through the torrent of horror, regret, and sadness, through tears, and through her own reluctance, Alya lifted her eyes to Marinette’s face-

And to the earrings hanging innocently in her ears.


	4. Let's Play! Solo Run, 1 Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We take a break from Alya to hang out with Cat Noire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place concurrently with chapter 3.

Hawkmoth released seven akumas since Ladybug was last seen. They came quickly, at first, as if he was trying to flush her out of hiding. When that didn’t work, the akumas didn’t stop, but slowed down to their usual pace.

  
“Hawkmoth probably knows Ladybug is frozen,” Plagg suggested one night, “He just can’t resist the temptation to try to get your ring.”

  
Cat Noire had no problem remembering the exact number. While their powers did not include purifying akumas, Cat's staff, like Ladybug’s yo-yo, could apparently capture them temporarily.

  
Cat counted the trapped akumas by the spots on the baton that burned to the touch, almost hot enough to do damage through their kwami-supplied gloves.

  
They burned a warning, and Plagg followed up verbally as well.  
“The space isn’t unlimited, and you’ll have to release them eventually, or risk destroying the staff.”

  
“So what do I do?” Cat demanded.

  
“Find Ladybug.”

  
Even at this point, five days into Alya’s search, Cat didn’t have a real plan. They weren’t entirely sure what to do with Ladybug’s statue, even assuming they found her.

  
Plagg was characteristically vague about it, but suggested that he could somehow awaken Ladybug’s kwami. Once she was free, the kwami of Creation could cleanse the trapped akumas and do a watered-down version of the Miraculous Cure. The plan included a lot of maybes, but it was all Cat had to go on, the hope that kept them running along rooftops, shouting warnings to civilians and insults at akumatized strangers.

  
Cat Noire was not meant to work alone, had never trained to run through the night without help, or to watch their own back. But for the last week, they had to. There was no safety net, no partner, and no reprieve. Cat Noire saved Paris, or it burned.

  
“You’re running yourself ragged,” Adrienne’s mother might have noticed.

  
“Do you need to take some time off?” they wished their father would ask.

  
Instead, Adrienne silently watched their classmates disappear one by one.  
Instead, the Agreste heir bought a month’s supply of camembert at once, in case the supply chain was cut off.

  
Instead, Cat Noire appeared alone for seven akumas in a row, and did everything they could to stall. For the first two attacks, they held out hope that Ladybug would appear. Still, they avoid using Cataclysm on anything larger than an ice cream stall, just in case it couldn’t be fixed.

  
By the third attack, Cat had to admit that their partner was gone.

“You will be staying home from school until this is resolved,” Adrienne’s father told them, one week since Ladybug was last seen. “You will keep up with your studies. Nathalie is drawing up a schedule.”

  
Adrienne just nodded. More time spent alone meant more time to patrol, and hopefully fewer casualties.

  
* * * * * * *  
_“Mayor Bourgeois. Your Ladybug has forsaken you and Cat Noire is failing. It’s so unfair that you bear the blame for the destruction of your fair city. If only I had Cat Noire’s Miraculous, I could cease these attacks. Paris would be peaceful once again. Don’t you agree, Political Machine?”_  
* * * * * * *

  
The loud, frenzied buzzing of a vibrating cellphone on a wooden table interrupted Adrienne’s weekend piano practice. Their fingers froze mid-note. Their stomach churned with dread.

  
Marinette was MIA, Alya was busy, and Nino’s entire family had evacuated. There was no one left to text them. This had to be an Akuma Sighting.

  
A quick glance at the phone screen confirmed it: the Ladyblog was sending out an Akuma Sighting Alert.

  
Adrienne knew from speaking to Alya in happier times that the Akuma Alert system was automatic, and was triggered any time three users reported sighting an akuma in the same 2km radius.

  
“Great, akuma number 8,” Adrienne muttered to themself. They shook their head in an attempt to dislodge their own acridity.

“We can do this. No paw-blem!”

  
* * * * * * *

  
“Cat Noire!” the akuma roared. Cat Noire’s head snapped up. They were perched on a rooftop, scanning the area for suspicious movement. But the akuma wasn’t in the streets.

  
It was above them.

  
Cat bit back a curse.

  
Flying akumas, in Cat Noire’s opinion, were the Worst. They were more mobile than other akumas, more mobile than Ladybug or Cat Noire, as well. They could escape quickly, and cover more distance. They attacked from above, making escape from them difficult as well.

  
The worst part, Cat recently learned, was the damage they could cause. A wider range meant a wider scale of destruction, and bringing them down came with a new set of challenges. Studying their opponent, Cat Noire was reminded of RogerCop, more than Stormy Weather or Dark Cupid.

  
This akuma was not a helicopter. It was not a helicopter, but it was closer in shape and function to one than it was to anything else. It had a large, metallic chassis and two sets of spinning blades keeping it aloft, but that was where the similarities ended.

  
“Who the hell are you-“

  
“I AM THE POLITICAL MACHINE,” it roared.

“-supposed to be,” Cat finished halfheartedly. They extended their baton in preparation.

  
“I WILL DEFEAT YOU,” it continued. The voice was coming from some kind of speaker, Cat noted. They wondered if the akuma was the machine, or was inside it. Maybe if they could shoot the baton through the speaker, they could- “I WILL SAVE THE CITY FROM YOUR DESTRUCTION!”

  
Cat Noire’s train of thought crashed and burned. In the midst of the metaphorical inferno, Cat tried to reassemble something that made sense.

  
“You’re saving the city. From me,” Cat repeated in wonder. Their defensive stance was wilting as their muscles subconsciously relaxed.

  
“GIVE ME YOUR MIRACULOUS,” the Political Machine continued. “SO THAT YOUR REIGN OF TERROR CAN END.”

  
Cat barely dodged a barrage of exploding projectiles (which looked suspiciously like paperwork). Was it opposite day? Akumas were usually very blunt about their motivations and goals. This one seemed very focused on Cat Noire, as if Hawkmoth’s success was its only objective. What could-

  
Another set of missiles headed their way, and Cat leapt away, dropping into a narrow alley and out of sight.

  
Half of Cat’s attention was on the akuma’s actions, dodging and evading. The other half was puzzling out the big picture: what did this akuma want, where was its possessed item, and how could Cat use this information to best defeat it? 

  
“MY STAKEHOLDERS NEED RESULTS, CAT NOIRE.”

  
Maybe this akuma was like RogerCop in more than just appearance? He, too, had been preoccupied with “taking in” Cat Noire and Ladybug, although even he had become distracted by jaywalking and littering civilians.

  
And what was this Political Machine thing about, anyway? The machine part was obviously a reference to the form of the akuma itself, but-

  
The Political Machine did another flyover, and Cat’s eye caught a glimpse of a detail out of place: Mayor Bourgeois’ ribbon pinned to the akuma's metal chassis.

  
Cat’s distraction allowed the Political Machine to strike a glancing blow on the superhero’s leg. That was a fair payment for finding the akuma’s special object, Cat thought.

  
“LET’S SEE IF YOU CAN ESCAPE FROM MY CAMPAIGN WORKERS SO EASILY,” the Political Machine announced.

  
Cat’s hope dwindled as a crowd of human forms began to close in on their position.

Their eyes were unfocused, but their motions were decisive, not the clumsy lumbering weaker akuma drones.

  
Their injured leg ached, but Cat ignored it and prepared to fight.

  
* * * * * * *

Adrenaline coursed through Cat Noire’s veins. Resting on a rooftop on the way home, they found they could not keep still. Their legs shook, their teeth wanted to chatter.

Even with the akuma defeated, their body did not know how to relax.

  
They imagined returning home in this state. Sitting on their bed, waiting for their knees to stop knocking together. Trying to concentrate on the piano or Chinese lessons with an activated fight-or-flight response sounded like torture.

  
Cat just didn’t want to be alone, but their options were sparse. As previously noted, all of their friends had evacuated or had already succumb to akuma attacks that Cat Noire failed to adequately prevent. Even Chloe was gone, although her father was not advertising that fact.

  
Cat winced just thinking of Chloe. It was fortunate she wasn’t present to see her father akumatized.

Certain classmates might feel otherwise, but Adrienne knew Chloe didn’t deserve to see a loved one twisted into a monster by Hawkmoth’s magic. Andre Bourgeois and his daughter Chloe were not perfect, but they were also not to blame for the destruction the akumas wrought. Self-involvement and pettiness would not level city blocks in a normal city. The Bourgeois’ flaws were human. Hawkmoth was responsible for these super-human consequences.

  
Alya would understand. Adrienne had never been close with Alya, their acquaintance mostly a result of their mutual friends. When there was no one else, Cat Noire had gone to Alya for help. Now, Cat Noire depended on the Ladyblogger almost as much as they trusted Ladybug.

  
But Adrienne Agreste was under house arrest, and Cat Noire didn’t dare make Alya a target by appearing at her home in broad daylight.

Cat Noire and Ladybug were effective against akumas partially because of their secret identities. Hawkmoth had no leverage on the superheroes. He could threaten civilians, but he had no personal connection to exploit. If Alya was known as Cat Noire’s official ally, though, she would be a target for akumas.

  
‘ _That might not matter for long,’_ Adrienne thought with dread. Alya’s mother had been among the Political Machine’s minions. Could Hawkmoth really get any worse?

  
Plagg could not directly communicate with Adrienne when the suit was on. But the teeth-clenching terror that filled Cat Noire was not their own, and there was only one entity it could have come from.

  
‘ _I guess that’s my answer.’_

  
* * * * * * *

  
Cat Noire returned home to bide their time until sunset. Their life had been reduced to the time between akuma attacks, interspersed with clandestine meetings with Alya. Everything else (lessons, leisure, sleep, meals) was optional, and seemed to fade into the background. The motions of everyday life were the workings of stagehands, the commercial breaks of Adrienne’s life. They were invisible, though sometimes necessary.

  
Adrienne ate lunch in the kitchen, but afterwards they could not have told you what they’d eaten.

  
Their father hadn’t spoken to Adrienne in three days. Vague admonishments and directions were given through Nathalie, and Adrienne nodded politely and immediately ignored them.

Piano music filled the air, keeping Nathalie’s concerns at bay. Adrienne played recordings on their phone while they filled a notebook with lists.

  
There were lists of friends, with names crossed off as they became unavailable.

There were lists of places akumas had emerged, with no new patterns yet discovered.

There was a single list that Adrienne would put away and bring back out obsessively: facts about Ladybug. They added at least one note very day. “Her favorite color is pink.” “She has a mean right hook.” “She doesn’t speak Chinese.”

  
Everything Adrienne knew about Ladybug could fill a book, but there was nothing definite there, nothing that could amount to a clue about her identity, or her whereabouts.

  
Cat Noire had no ideas, no leads. All they could do was buy time fending off Hawkmoth’s assault while Alya did the groundwork of finding Ladybug.

And, speaking of, Alya must have spent the day going through attendance records at Collège Françoise Dupont. It could prove to be another dead end, but Cat found themself curious all the same.

Adrienne studied the fraction of the Paris skyline visible from their bedroom window. It was not yet sunset, but the sky was definitely darkening.

That would have to be close enough.

  
* * * * * * *

  
The pun Cat Noire had planned slipped, unspoken, from their lips. Alya’s open window had beckoned them in, but the girl’s face told a different story. Alya was stricken, and the usually verbose teenager seemed to be at a loss for words.

  
“What?” Cat asked, without a thought. “What happened?” As soon as the words left their mouth they flinched. Obviously, Alya’s mother was taken over by an akuma. Obviously Alya was affected by that!

  
Who wouldn’t be devastated?

  
Alya opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She coughed, and tried again.

“I found Ladybug.”

  
Cat Noire was stunned into silence. Already? How? There was no way she had been able to check all of the student records at each of the three schools in one day!

  
“Are you sure?” they asked. Their mind was a whirl, still processing that their search was over. “I need to check for-“

  
“I’m sure,” Alya interrupted. “I had a hunch and- now that I think about it, it fits perfectly. She was never around when Ladybug was. She was never akumatized.”

  
Excitement and anxiety warred within Cat Noire. They wanted to know who their Lady was, of course. Both personally, and so that she could be revived! But they were also nervous.

Cat knew Ladybug wanted to keep her identity a secret. She would be upset, and for good reason. Knowing her identity would change the dynamic of Ladybug and Cat Noire forever. Cat had put the safety of Paris above Ladybug’s trust. They hoped she would understand. But, if not, they were prepared to accept the consequences.

  
“She’s… in your class?” Cat asked with trepidation.

  
Alya nodded. “You’ve met.”

  
Cat ran through their classmates in their head, trying to place who it could be.

“Tell me.”

  
Alya did.


	5. She Who Rises/ All of our flaws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette faces the MonstArtist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first half of this chapter takes place before chapter 1, which I hope is clear through the narration. The second half takes place after chapter 4.
> 
> This is it, y'all.

Marinette was, on the whole, very responsible with how she used her Miraculous. Sure, there were times in the past she had transformed for her own gain, or for revenge, but she felt that she had learned her lesson and matured since then. She realized that Ladybug was her privilege and her duty.

So why was she transforming for the relatively mundane task of traversing Paris, running errands for her mother?

Tikki could not literally speak to Marinette while she was Ladybug, but she could imagine the little Kwami’s squeaky voice perfectly: ‘ _Marinette, you know better than this!’_

“It’s just errands,” Ladybug whispered to herself, trying to convince herself as well as her magical guardian. “If I use the Miraculous to get them done early, I’ll actually have time to patrol Paris tonight. If I didn’t use my Miraculous, this would take all day!” It was a trade-off, in Marinette’s mind. She would rather not use her powers for frivolous tasks such as these, but if it gave her more time to keep Paris safe, wasn’t it worth it? Wasn’t her decision _more_ responsible?

Ladybug couldn’t tell if the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach came from Tikki or her own misgivings.

The feelings followed her from rooftop to rooftop, in the swing of her yoyo, and through her drop into an alleyway. Marinette got her answer when she dropped the transformation, revealing her own doubts along with her real face.

She stood in the alleyway with Tikki peeking out of her purse and re-centered herself. Was this a bad idea? Possibly, although the exact risks were unknown. However, now that she was across town, there would be no point in returning home without the items on her mother’s shopping list. It would just mean a waste of time, a risk without payoff.

Better to get the items quickly and without fuss, and return home as soon as possible.

Newly determined, Marinette marched off with her list in hand.

* * * * * * *

It was early afternoon, and the sun was still shining brightly overhead. In a few hours, it would dip behind the tall buildings flanking the street, marking the beginning of the strange twilight hours experienced in heavily urban areas.

Marinette felt that she was making good time. If she had relied on public transportation, she would just be arriving in the shopping district on the other side of Paris. By using her powers as Ladybug, she had arrived around noon and was almost done accumulating the items on her mother’s list!

Her stomach growled, closely echoed by Tikki’s. Marinette blushed, and quiet laughter drifted up from her purse. The sound was soft and lyrical, like the ringing of a small bell.

Surely there was a café or restaurant where she could grab a quick bite- with a small dessert, perhaps, for her Kwami. It took a lot of energy to travel such a long distance in so little time, even for a miniature God of Creation.

Later, Marinette would notice the laser-like sound that accompanied the akuma’s powers, but without context, she wasn’t sure what she was hearing. It blended in to the sounds of the city. Not perfectly, but enough that Marinette’s first inkling that something was wrong came not from the noise, but from the statues.

She turned a corner, focusing more on the signs of the nearby buildings than on the crowd around her. The crowd parted in front of her, and suddenly there was a statue of a person mid-step. It teetered precariously on one foot. Marinette’s mind was still processing the scene, but her legs were already moving. She lunged as it fell, and lowered the statue to the ground.

She stared at the face of the statue, a man’s expression frozen in fear. Marinette’s analytical mind worked overtime trying to piece together what she was seeing. Unsure exactly what to be concerned about, but concerned nonetheless, Marinette scanned her surroundings with the eye of a superhero rather than a shopper.

As the street cleared, Marinette finally heard the _whverr_ of a laser for what it was.

She was too far from the akuma to see her form, or her next victim, but Marinette saw the blue glow emitted by her weapon.

Then, she heard her voice.

“I’LL SHOW YOU REALISM!”

Another flash of blue light, with no specific origin or destination Marinette could see.

The screaming started.

Marinette was not naturally athletic. When she wasn’t paying attention, her hand-eye coordination left something to be desired. Competence, perhaps.

But with reflexes honed by months of heroics, Marinette dropped her shopping bags and vaulted over an upturned café table.

“Tikki,” she hissed, eyes peering over the table for a glimpse of her opponent. “Spots on!”

Tikki’s voice came mournful and clear, like the melancholy song of a sparrow. “I’m sorry Marinette. I can’t.”

Marinette bit her lip and thought. Another of the reflexes honed by being Ladybug: crisis problem solving.

Okay. The akuma had some kind of power that gave off light and turned people into statues. Was there some property of stone that could help? Her mind flashed through concepts, hoping for a clue. Lava, metamorphic, erosion, hardness, fracture- she winced. No, she didn’t want to risk the people trapped in stone.

Alright then, what about light?

Mairnette looked at her surroundings, her eyes catching on the glass storefront behind her, as well as the black tablecloth that had slipped off her table and onto the ground. If she could combine these, she could make a mirror. All she had to do was find a way to catch the akuma’s attention-

Using up Tikki’s energy racing across Paris for a mundane chore could be considered Marinette’s first mistake of the day. It’s true that on any other day that choice might not be her undoing, but this was not any other day. This was the day the MonstArtist was akumatized.

Standing up, abandoning the cover of the overturned table, was her second mistake.

As she scanned her surroundings, looking for a convenient distraction, she didn’t realize that she already had the akuma’s attention.

“Marinette!” Tikki warned.

Blue eyes snapped up, finally alighting on the akuma she had failed to notice before, hovering in the air on butterfly wings made of ripped canvas.

She dove out of the way just in time to escape the blue beam the MonstArtist shot toward her.

The akuma howled wordlessly. Marinette forced her body to run, twist, and roll out of the way. Luckily, the akuma had no particular interest in her, and lost interest when chasing her became too tedious.

Once the MonstArtist’s back was turned, Marinette dashed toward cover once more. She grabbed the black tablecloth in her hands and tried to come up with an easy way to fx it to the back of the window when-

There was a boy not much younger than Marinette standing in the street. The other shoppers had evacuated or found a place to hide, but he was standing shock-still, frozen by his own fear.

The MonstArtist had spotted him, too.

Marinette’s third decision of the day was not, strictly speaking, a mistake.

It was very, very intentional.

Instead of using it to create a mirror, Marinette balled up the tablecloth in her hands and threw it with all her strength at the akuma.

“Hey!” She yelled. “Rob Liefeld!”

The cloth opened mid-air and fluttered uselessly to the ground. The akuma spun around and shrieked.

“How DARE you compare me to that hack!”

Marinette stared at the boy, mentally begging him to run. He blinked, and broke his wide-eyed stare. They locked eyes. He mouthed something to her- gratitude, or a warning.

Marinette didn’t start to run until he did.

She dashed around the upturned chairs and tables, slid under a cart loaded with flowers, and almost made it around the corner before the blue light engulfed her.

The stone overtook her body from her extremities inward. She took one step, agonizingly slow, as the stone advanced. Her legs went numb and stiff, cutting off her escape before it began. She reached for her purse, to free Tikki if nothing else, but her fingers barely grasped the latch before they stopped responding.

Fear gripped her heart- or was that stone?

“Tikki, spots on!” she cried in desperation. She braced herself for the change, for the rush of energy and strength leant to her by her kwami.

Her purse was silent. The stone continued. Marinette’s frantic eyes glanced back at the akuma, trying to find some last-second solution-

The stone entombed her. Around Marinette’s frozen body, shoppers still screamed, still fled in terror. But Marinette remained unaware.

And that was how her parents found her hours later, completely frozen, a girl calcified.

Marinette didn’t know that Cat Noire had arrived and, after a lengthy battle, managed to defeat the akuma who called herself MonstArtist.

She didn’t know about the police cordoning off the entire street while they waited, uncertain, for Ladybug to revive the statues. She didn’t feel her own body being moved several days later, when the police admitted that a magical solution was not forthcoming. She didn’t hear her parents speaking to her statue, or deciding to place her in her own room, where she was safe and loved.

She did not hear a thousand citizens of Paris call for Ladybug in the ensuing weeks.

* * * * * * *

Marinette did not feel cold. She didn’t feel much of anything. A sleeping limb feels cold to the touch, but only if you have another limb free to touch it. Marinette was numb all over, the sleepy empty existence of the MonstArtist’s victims completely blanketing her senses.

She thought she heard voices, but they were far away, and muted. Her awareness was limited, as were her thoughts. Later, when describing this to Alya, Marinette would compare her time as a statue to being sick in bed with the flu. Time was fluid and passed quickly, leaving her with only vague impressions of the world around her.

Being freed from stone was like breaking the surface of water after being under too long, or waking all of her limbs form sleep at once. It was a coming to life, a relief from entombment. It was also painful.

Marinette fell to her knees and breathed shallowly through gritted teeth. Her arms shook, and her fingernails bit the soft skin of her palms. Fortunately, the pain faded quickly.

“Marinette?” a voice asked in concern. Marinette was so relieved by the absence of pain that she didn’t consciously identify the speaker. Later, she would not be able to remember who asked first.

She lifted her head. The motion almost hit the small red kwami who was hovering over her, watching.

“Tikki?” Marinette asked, her head spinning. She had been on the street. Outside, alone, and away from home. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she was clearly inside, in her room, and-

They were not alone.

“Alya?” Marinette asked in confusion. She glanced between her friend and her kwami. The fading pain left her mind a bit clouded, as if waking from a deep sleep, and she was having trouble processing the combination of Tikki and Alya in the same place.

“My- Marinette,” a familiar voice whispered, the word barely more than a relieved sigh.

Marinette’s head turned. Her stomach was already churning as the implications of the situation began to hit her. And there, crouched behind her on one knee, was Adrien Agreste, the object of her most embarrassing affections.

“What’s going on?” Marinette asked. She tried frantically to assemble her most recent memories into something resembling linear time, but they flowed like water between her fingers. Hunger. There was an akuma. She was Ladybug. Screaming. She tried to escape. Which happened first? Which happened last?

Alya and Adrien traded glances. Marinette saw but couldn’t decode what was being communicated.

_What was going on?_

“I brought Alya into this,” Adrien confessed (confessed to _what_ , though?) “I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want it to turn out like this, but I didn’t know what else to do. Plagg needed to be here in person to revive Tikki, and I figured… if you were losing your secret, I’d give you mine in exchange.”

Marinette blinked. That was a lot to take in when her brain was still fuzzy. Processing... processing... her brain stalled.

"What?" she asked.

Alya looked like she was about to brust with anxious energy, and began trying to explain.

“I told them who you are! I know I promised to stop investigating, but when they asked… we didn’t know how else to save you,” Alya admitted.

Marinette’s brain took a moment to catch up. Nothing Adrien said was making sense, but she could at least try to decode Alya’s words.

 _Who you are_ – with Tikki hovering nearby, that could only mean _Ladybug_ . Told _them_ \- Tikki already knew who she was, so in this context _them_ could only be-

Marinette looked at Adrien. Really looked. At the blonde hair, a little more tamed but no longer than her partner’s. Clues began to stack up, and she found she wasn’t as surprised as she expected to be.

“Them?” Marinette asked, anyway, just in case the secret had spread further.

“Me,” Adrien (Adrienne?) clarified. “I’m Cat Noire.”

Marinette was breathless, speechless. Marinette had been spending more and more time with Adrien(ne?) recently, and had slowly been replacing her idealized image with a real, living person. In the same timeframe, her image of Cat Noire was fading from a flirtatious playboy to a bubbly, honest friend.

The two ambiguous images overlapped in her mind and began to merge. The similarities between her two friends were clearer now that she had peeked behind their masks. That made it easier to reconcile the two faces of one person: Adrienne Agreste and Cat Noire.

That revelation well in hand, she allowed herself to move to the next one: that her partner knew her identity. Cat Noire knew that their Lady was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Adirenne knew that their classmate was Ladybug.

And so did Alya.

Marinette’s eyes landed on her best friend, the one person who had her back unquestionably, even when Marinette herself was inconsistent and dishonest.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Marinette maintained. “But I’m sorry.”

“I know, girl,” Alya replied with a sad smile. “Friend-me is disappointed that you didn’t trust me, but Journalist-me understands why you couldn’t tell anyone- even Cat Noire.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Marinette insisted, capturing Alya in a hug. Thank you- for understanding, for saving her, for working with Cat Noire, for keeping their secret.

“So…” Adrienne began, tentatively. “Do you hate me?” Their voice squeaked a bit at the last word. Familiar green eyes revealed hope and fear in equal measure.

Marinette laughed.

“Of course not, kitty.” She reached out, and Adrienne smiled and joined the hug. “We’ll figure it out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> Rob Liefeld is a comic artist who worked for Marvel. He famously draws really distorted human figures, apparently because he thinks they look good.
> 
> EDIT: I have been informed that Rob Liefeld has taken criticism to heart and improved on his figure drawing. See [this tumblr post.](http://phoenixyfriend.tumblr.com/post/169573919975/jedidalek-assbaka-atsthetic)


End file.
